


Through The Windowpane

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 16:00:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We thought we were different from Mal and Dom. We thought we could learn from their example. We were wrong.</p><p>For the inception_kink prompt: <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/13659.html?thread=30196315#t30196315">Something based on Scheherazade by Richard Siken.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Through The Windowpane

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake  
and dress them in warm clothes again.  
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running  
until they forget that they are horses.  
It's not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,  
it's more like a song on a policeman's radio  
how we rolled up the carpet so we could dance, and the days  
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple  
to slice into pieces.  
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it's noon, that means  
we're inconsolable  
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.  
These, our bodies, possessed by light.  
Tell me we'll never get used to it.  
 _Scheherazade, by Richard Siken._

 

Mal and Dom Cobb had known each other for a long time before they got married. They swore to always let work be work, keeping their marriage separate. They swore they wouldn't let it bleed into their private life, and that they could handle the strain of working with each other while still being husband and wife and parents to two toddlers. It hadn't worked out, which is a horror story for a different day.

We thought we were better than that. We thought we could learn from their example.

We were wrong.

***

I was too cocky, I think. The dreaming came easily to me, making me feel like I had done it a thousand times before. It was one thing to sketch an impossible design, to see paradoxes in a book of drawings or know logically that they existed. It changed something in me to hang over the edge of the Penrose steps, feeling the vertigo set in. This was different, and I think I was more in love with the potential of the dream than cautious about what it could mean in the real world. I didn't think of it. It felt too abstract. Even the horror that Mal had become, something twisted and changed in Dom's mind, hadn't really sunk in. I was driven by concern for the rest of the team, for Dom tearing apart his mind like that. He didn't warn us what would happen. He didn't think it was important anymore because he was so driven by his final goal that we all became means to an end.

Sitting around that first level for days, Arthur and I got to talking a lot. Once the adrenaline rush was over, and we were caught in this rainy city I had built, we were able to assess what we knew about what had happened.

At first I couldn't get over the feeling of cold, the fact that I could _feel_ even though it was just a dream. We'd dragged ourselves out of the river, and I was nearly freezing to death. There were hiding spots built into the city, and we could survive without any problems. Fischer's subconscious didn't expect us to still be there. He expected us to be dead, and as long as we were in hiding, we would be all right.

Our first kiss was an impulsive thing on the second level of the dream, but our real one was on the first level.

We shouldn't do this. We know what the dangers are. Look at where it got Dom and Mal. Look at what became of them.

This is different, he told me. It's not going to happen the same way. Look at me, Ariadne. _Look at me._

We kissed, my back pressed up against the wall and his hands holding mine. I could feel the cool glass of a dream window behind my hand, his lips over mine and his tongue in my mouth and all I could think of was that this was _real_ somehow, more real than any kiss I'd ever gotten in the real world.

There was no beginning and no ending, no way to tell how we got to that point or where we would go from there. I don't remember where our clothes went, only that they were gone, and we were skin to skin, as if we could crawl inside each other and live there, sharing breath and dreams and everything in between. I do remember nearly screaming when I came, everything more intense than I had ever felt it in real life, as if I was on fire and Arthur was the only thing that could save me.

I love you, I wanted to say. This never has to end.

But all things end. Dreamers wake up. That's the way it goes.

***

Arthur didn't have my hotel room number, but he tracked me down and showed up. I had been too keyed up to try to do anything, and I didn't know anyone in LA anyway. I was surprised but not surprised when he showed up. I almost knew how he thought, so I could almost predict his next move.

Ariadne, he whispered, and then his mouth was on mine. It was as if he was trying to say he loved me without saying the words, as if hearing them spoken would curse us both and doom this before it even started. Or maybe I was reading too much into it, getting too melodramatic because of the rush of doing the impossible and surviving.

He was beautiful to watch, the planes and angles of his body over mine taking my breath away. He felt even better. You're better than any design I could ever make, I told him, and he laughed as he kissed me. Everyone always said that the eyes are windows to the soul, but for Arthur it's his mouth as well. I got to know it very well over our time in the dream, how it felt over my skin or between my legs. I knew how he tasted, how he sounded when I ran my tongue over his skin or dragged my fingers down his chest.

It felt like a dream, even if I wasn't dreaming. I didn't feel like myself. I felt like some wild thing, like he would catch me bluffing and know that I wasn't as strong as I wanted to be. I had charged on ahead as if I knew what I was doing, letting their compliments get the better of me. I should have stopped, but the challenge drew me in. And there were Arthur's eyes, and his mouth and his hands on my skin as if he would memorize me by touch.

All this, and I forgot to be cautious. I forgot to be afraid of what Mal had become, that it all had to start somewhere. We were different, we kept saying. This isn't going to end that way. This is true love. This is what it's supposed to be. We'll never change.

In his eyes I was beautiful. It was like magic had transformed me, and I wasn't some awkward girl obsessed with buildings and challenges and the impossible. I was someone cherished and worthy and amazing. How could I not want to be that way? It was easy to forget Mal, to think that it was all the twisted up guilt from Dom's head. She was lovely, Arthur had told me in a dream. She had been real once, and the real Mal had been an entirely different creature before Dom broke her.

I told myself this. I didn't want love to ruin us. I didn't want to be used to this, to feel as if this kind of magic was ordinary or could be lost. I wanted this to last forever.

My mother thought it was out of the blue to start moving in with someone. Arthur charmed her, of course. He could do anything if he put his mind to it, and he is an utter gentleman until he isn't. He won her over, she fussed over him and accepted him right away. It felt like everything sliding into place, everything just where it needed to be. I finished my degree and started going with him for jobs, designing impossible mazes of buildings and streets that could never exist in reality. He took me in with him to test them, pushing me up against buildings and kissing me senseless, showing me just how flexible he could be in tight spaces.

You're perfect, he told me so many times. You're everything I ever dreamed about.

I wanted this to work. I needed this to work.

I don't know when it started, though I tried to figure it out so many times. Maybe it was the late nights. Maybe it was the pregnancy scare. Maybe it was being dragged around the world with the threat of being killed at every turn. Maybe it was keeping track of the lies we told my mother. I don't know for certain when it started, when the magic started to fade a little. I don't know when it stopped being so wonderful or perfect, when he stopped looking at me as though he could devour me whole.

He started pulling away from me. It's fine, Ariadne, he told me. Nothing's wrong, he said. Everything's fine. Everything's the same, and it's going to be okay.

But it wasn't fine, it wasn't okay.

Test this with me? I asked him, voice almost desperate. Tell me what you think.

Buildings weren't buildings anymore, but mazes and traps. Our minds populated them with our fears; my buildings were full of blank faces and staring eyes if they weren't empty. His were too full of people, too many hollow eyes and ragged mouths dripping blood.

At the center of the maze, he pinned me down. He was rough, mouth over mine and nearly biting my lips. Things have to end somewhere, sometime, I thought. There has to be a way out, there has to be an end.

We went deeper in, though we never meant to. It isn't working, he told me, hands tight on my wrists where he held me down. Whatever you have planned, it's not working.

I don't have anything planned, I told him. Suddenly I was terrified.

 _Somebody wake me up! Wake me up!_

The words never came out, and we went deeper in. Things were twisted, dark, and I clung to him even as I was afraid of him. Arthur, what's happening? What's going on?

Didn't you plan this? he asked, sounding scared himself. The darkness was closing in like ugly tree branches waving in the wind, pulling at our hair and clothes. Didn't you want me to need you? he asked me, anger lacing his voice. Isn't this what you wanted?

No, I told him. Not like this. This isn't what I wanted.

We got separated somehow. He was pulled from me, twisted inside out and put back together wrong. He was just beyond my grasp, ruined, no longer the perfect image he had presented to me when we first met. He was dangerous, a seasoned killer and capable of ripping out my heart and feeding it to me.

I had forgotten that. Somehow, I had ignored it all and forgotten that, and how it all came too easily to him. I wasn't that kind, never that kind, but somehow I had changed without realizing it, becoming someone I didn't even recognize anymore.

This love had ruined us, had turned us into something awful and sharp, something capable of destroying us. It wasn't like Mal and Dom, but it wasn't any better.

You'll get used to this, he said, hands pulling at me, pulling me into the dark.

I don't want to, I told him. I don't want to ever get used to this.

You will.

***

I looked through the window and tried to think of other windows, other places and times where windows seemed so much less threatening. I didn't know where I was. I think I woke up, but I wasn't sure. I hadn't used my totem in such a long time that I didn't have it anymore. I had grown cocky, too sure I knew what was real and what wasn't. I didn't create from memory, after all. I didn't try to make the dream world like the waking world.

Arthur would have been proud of my work ethic and discipline. He liked that. It was the sign of a professional, a respect for the work that a lot of people didn't have. I had that in spades, and I wasn't afraid of hard work or long hours.

It was just everything else that had gone so horribly wrong.

I didn't know when I started crying, just that I did at one point. Arthur put his arms around me, and for a moment I thought it was how it used to be. He cared about me, he loved me, he wanted everything to be all right.

But his eyes were blue instead of brown, and I started screaming.

***

Wake up, Ariadne, he said. You have to wake up.

I'm something different from what I used to be, I said, even if it didn't make any sense. I can't wake up anymore.

Don't do this. You can't stay here. This isn't how it's supposed to be. There's another way. There's always another way, he told me. They were my own words flung back at me, my own thoughts held up for my review. He still loves you, he said, and all I could think about was how much I wanted that to be true.

We fell apart, not because of danger or twisted and dark love. We simply grew apart, two branches from a tree that couldn't stay twined together.

The real world wasn't so appealing anymore. There was no reason to go back.

Wake up, he said, even when I did wake. You have to wake up sometime. You can't be dreaming forever.

But when I was dreaming, I could forget. I could be someone else. I could be the innocent girl pressed against the window in a dream, I could be the one taking a kiss into the next level. I could be anyone other than the one left behind.

Wake up, Ariadne.

I was named after the mythical Ariadne, the girl that had her magic thread and was able to lead Theseus out of the labyrinth. Of course, once he was done with her, he left her. Maybe she never should have helped him out of the labyrinth.

I cut the threads and refused to follow them out.

***

You have to come back, he told me, eyes dark brown and frowning at me. It's not the same without you. We _need_ you.

We, not I. He didn't need me anymore. He didn't want me anymore, not that way, not the way I needed him to want me. God, I'm such a mess. This is why it's safer this way, locked up in here. This is why I have to stay.

He didn't like what I had to say, and I could see that muscle in his jaw tick. What are you talking about? he asked me. He almost looked like he wanted to reach out and shake me, knock the sense back into me.

You have to come back to me, Arthur told me, eyes flashing. I need you back.

Too late, too late, it's always too late. It feels like I'm trapped underwater, I told him. Or I'm caught behind glass. There's a window between us. I can't come back to you. It's not real anymore. This isn't how it's supposed to be.

Ariadne, I love you, he whispered. For a moment, I almost believed him. I wanted to believe him. I wanted this to be real.

I didn't need my totem to tell me it wasn't real.

***

I was sitting on wet rocks by the river, watching the water. It wasn't moving and neither was I. I was waiting for something, but I'd already forgotten what it was. I knew there was something I had to wait for, something important. This isn't who you're supposed to be, I almost told myself, but I didn't know if that was true any longer. What was I now, after all? I was someone lost, waiting for the dreams to come. I wanted the beginning back, the time when Arthur would kiss me as if I was all he needed to breathe, as if he would die if he couldn't touch me, as if I was the thing keeping him alive. This wasn't supposed to happen, the tenseness and the silence, growing apart and withdrawn. That was everything I was afraid of, and he had promised me it would never happen.

Liar, liar.

He cut my heart apart like apple slices, left me bleeding in the wreckage of my dreams. I looked out over the river, so much like the dream one where we sat and talked, then decided to move things on to the next level.

I didn't understand. Why didn't he love me anymore?

Ariadne, I heard him say. I turned, not really expecting him to be there. I couldn't trust this, couldn't believe this could be him. He'd left me, and I only had memories left. But he was standing there, all right, rumpled in places. It's time for you to come home, he said, coming to sit beside me. He reached out to grasp my hand in his, but I couldn't move. I've been looking for you. I didn't think I'd find you here.

What are you talking about? I whispered, looking at him out of the corner of my eyes. You left me.

If anything, he looked even more pale as he shook his head. I don't know what happened. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I should've known you weren't there with me, that something went wrong...

He wasn't making any sense, and he tightened his hold on me almost painfully. You have to let go of me, I told him angrily. You don't get to do this to me. You don't get to throw me away when you're bored and come back whenever the hell you feel like it.

No, Ariadne, he said, eyes pleading with me. It's not like that. I don't know what happened here, but it wasn't real. _It wasn't real._

I thought of blue eyes staring at me, and I knew that was right on some level. I couldn't believe what I was seeing or feeling. But then...

I was wavering, and he saw that. He pulled me to my feet and held me close. You have to come with me, he said. I've come to take you home.

This doesn't make sense, I told him. You're not making any sense. This ruined us. You told me so.

No, he told me, head shaking desperately. I've come to take you home.

I am home.

No, this is something else. This isn't where you belong. You belong with _me,_ not in this place. I've been trying to get you back home. You have to listen to me, Ariadne. I don't know how to live without you anymore. I need you.

This is where I belong now, I told him, my heart breaking. You told me how useless I am, how much of a disappointment I've become...

No, no, he said, shaking his head. That's not true. That's never true. He grasped my face in his hands and kissed me, just like I remembered it used to be, as if I was the air he needed to breathe, as if he really couldn't live without me.

I don't know where else to go, I told him.

If you won't come with me, I'll stay here with you.

Even I knew that was wrong. That wasn't how it should be. He didn't belong here, even if I did. I ruined everything, I should stay. Wasn't that the way it should go? I clung to him as he held me, and we swayed as if we were dancing. I closed my eyes and felt his arms tighten around me. I'll fix this, he promised me. I'll make everything right somehow. I don't know what happened, but I'll fix this.

I wanted to believe him. Some part of me couldn't. These things didn't end up well. Look at Mal and Dom. Look at where we were now.

This isn't real, Arthur told me. I felt a grenade in his hand against my back, and my breath caught. But I'll fix this. I promise you, Ariadne. I'll fix this.

He pulled the pin and we woke up.

The End


End file.
